Crime writer Louise Ross has been back to her native North East to launch her latest novel about a gruesome find on Hadrian’s Wall.

Louise, who writes under the pen name LJ Ross, grew up in Ponteland before moving to London for a career as a City lawyer.

Now living in Bath with her barrister husband James and their two-year-old son Ethan, Louise returned to Newcastle to launch Sycamore Gap in paperback at a special party for readers at Jesmond’s As You Like It.

The novel begins in the early hours of the summer solstice when the skeleton of a young women is found hidden inside Hadrian’s Wall at Sycamore Gap.

The murder victim has lain undiscovered for a decade and LJ Ross’s central character DCI Ryan must piece together her past.

Sycamore Gap is the second novel in the DCI Ryan series for bestselling author Louise, who only began her writing career when she became a mum.

She went down the same route as Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James and self-published through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. But, such was the demand from readers, Louise has opted to also publish in paperback.

Speaking before Saturday’s launch Louise said: “I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by the response to my first two books and I can’t wait to meet readers at the launch of Sycamore Gap. The North East has inspired everything I’ve written so far so it’s only fitting that I should come back to the region to launch my latest novel.

“I was travelling past the Northumberland coast when I started to plot my first novel, I was visiting my parents in Ponteland when Holy Island was released for sale and now I can’t wait to meet readers at the launch of Sycamore Gap.”

Former Newcastle Central High pupil Louise, 30, wrote her first book Holy Island after passing Lindisfarne during a train journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh and remarking that she was surprised no one had set a novel there. It went on to hit the top of the UK Amazon charts.

While her second book is based around the spot on Hadrian’s Wall made famous by the Kevin Costner movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, her third, which she is busy writing, is also set in Northumberland.

Due out in 2016, Heavenfield features the tiny church of St Oswald’s, believed to be where King Oswald raised a wooden cross before the Battle of Heavenfield. It will tie up the themes explored in her first two books.